Chapter 54 

(WARNING, SPOILERS!)

Ethan

There’s a deeper kind of silence that surrounds death. Neither exhaustion, nor the hollow that settles in a room after a body is carried away. Death invites the watchful quiet of anticipation, and I recognized it immediately as Nuria’s power swept over me, sinking deep into my muscles and bones. I sank into the cold, numb river of her power—let it take me far away while tethering me to the present moment. The sensations passed through me without the fear that had gripped me in its talons only moments before. I watched from the edge of life, feeling myself cease breathing. Did Nuria lose control? Was she dying too on the metal table beside me? I couldn’t turn my head, but I could see the room from where I lay on my side from under the thin sheet; hear the heavy boots running down the stairs.

The prep room held its breath with me.

The door burst open, and the smell of scorched moss and burnt meth lab assaulted my nostrils.

Marcus and Togaburn, just as we’d feared. They’d survived our martial arts assault, the warehouse explosion, and an FBI bust, and now they were out for blood. Marcus held the gnoman magic lantern, and Togaburn clutched the mushroom spore blowgun. Both weapons could overpower us in these close quarters, even with our martial arts training and the last two fresh scalpel blades.

Nuria had been right. This was our only chance—slim though it was.

“We know you’re in here, traitors!” Tall for a gnome, Marcus’s burly body eclipsed the buzzing, flickering lights I’d yet to replace. Behind him, Togaburn took heaving breaths, the thinner gnome circling the room like a caged bobcat—if that bobcat was also on meth. I watched them both through the thin sheet, my eyes open and unblinking.

“You may have gotten to Ricky, but the Gnoman Empire will rise again!” Togaburn stumbled between Nuria and my table. I couldn’t turn to look, but he hacked out a dry cough, then a long shuffling inhale.

“Stop snorting those blow dart spores and find them!” growled Marcus. Togaburn tossed over the table with a metallic clatter, shrieking. Together, they opened drawers, then ducked around the corner to the crematorium, conveniently checking everywhere and everything other than our hiding spot. The runic lantern glowed ancient mossy green, its magic seeking truth only our near-deaths might hide.

They turned to us, steps pounding.

The sheet lifted in a cold whoosh of air. My unblinking eyes watched back.

“Get up, traitors!” Togaburn spat, his rank saliva sprinkling my skin.

I froze. Well, I guess technically I was already frozen due to mock rigor mortis, but this was the end.

I’m so sorry Nuria.

Togaburn slapped my cold face with his hand as Marcus checked Nuria for a pulse. He must know.

“Get up and face us, you bastards! You can’t stab Ricky in the back like this!” Togaburn wheezed.

Marcus started laughing, waving a hand above Nuria’s unbreathing face. “They’re dead, you idiot. They already got what’s due to them.”

Togaburn let out a wheezing chuckle. “That stupid woman must have been sloppy with her death magic. And the two of them must have stayed alive long enough to lie down in the morgue all proper-like, covering themselves with a sheet and everything.”

“Why’d they do that, you think?”

“Maybe they thought it would make less work for the remaining mortuary workers?”

Marcus chuckled, scratching his brows. “With the cocktail in my bloodstream right now, can’t say I’m making sense of that.”

They cackled together until it sounded like wails of despair.

Togaburn’s eyes roved the room like a rabid raccoon. “It’s over. The money in the vault. The power. Donuts at city council meetings. Had just got ‘em to buy the pudding-filled kind.”

“Boston Cream.” Marcus nodded solemnly. “They took it all from us, Burnie.”

Togaburn’s eye twitched. “Think we should destroy their little mortuary with the lantern fire, Marcus? Or stab their bodies to make sure they are really dead?”

My heart stopped, although I wasn’t sure it was beating to begin with. I’d zoned out, staring at Nuria’s tight blouse the last time she tried to explain the magic system.

“Nope,” Marcus said with a shrug. “Let’s just go to our secret hideout on 67 Coleridge Street, where the FBI will never find us—the secret basement.”

Loud Footsteps away and up the stairs. They didn’t slam the door of the building, it creaked like the fracture of a solemn vow—a slow death. Silence.

I waited. My heart pounded. Metaphorically maybe, I don’t know. Because again… if you saw Nuria in that tight little blouse, you’d understand why I retained nothing about how her magic actually worked. Maybe someday, I would acclimate to her stunning beauty and retain listening skills. If we survived this long enough to start a relationship, it might cause problems if my brain kept short-circuiting around her. That rack of hers, though. Damn.

Three seconds.

Five.

Ten. Then life returned to my body. I breathed in, shivering.

“Ethan?” she whispered.

I twitched, sitting up with a breath like the snap of ice in a stream. Nuria’s skin remained pale, her lips tinged blue, but her eyes—

Alive. So very alive.

“You did it,” I breathed. “You mastered your powers to save us.”

She blinked, dazed but smiling. “I’ve never been able to affect another person like this before. But with you… I can go so much deeper.”

“I’ll go deep for you,” I said, not thinking about magic. I reached for her hands—cold, but no longer shaking. “You’re incredible.”

“I finally found the pattern,” she said, so quiet I barely caught it. “If I shut everything down, it’s simple. I just need to know someone’s here for me. Not believe—know.”

“I’m here,” I said, warming her hands between mine. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

She looked at me—and I realized something. With all my talk to let her go start a new life in a McMansioned HOA neighborhood far from here, I could never let her go.

“I need to text the FBI,” she said, pulling away. You’d think that would break the spell, but how she said it—she cut me to the core. The brutal efficiency of this woman enthralled me as she squinted at her phone to tie up loose ends, whispering “67 Coleridge Street” under her breath.

She hit send, then cocked her head at me. “What now?”

I kissed her.

There was nothing hesitant beyond that first touch of our lips, with so many chapters of slowburn and tension-laced fight scenes building up to this, including one of those “take your shirt off so I can treat your wounds” moments, because those are hot. We grew wild together—messy. It still smelled a little like gnomes who needed a shower, but under that–the familiar smoke of the crematorium and the tart chemical aromas that meant home—our little mortuary. And her, her body warm against mine, her kiss tasting of espresso and adrenaline. I needed her closer. I pulled her body to mine.

She drew back a moment. The weight between us shifted as we locked eyes—finding something in each other beyond our shared survival and grief. Surrounded by the reminders of death, we found new life. I forgot the grim reaper’s face—there was only hers. We eased into that next kiss, letting the wave of it overpower us and pull us down—down like her body, which I eased gently on the empty table. My hands stroked the lingering sorrow from her face. I leaned over her and poured all my desire into a fresh kiss. She needed to understand just how much I needed her. And those frigid hands of hers weren’t winter, they were the renewal into spring, the whispered knowledge that she needed me just as much.

She sighed under me, her hands roving my neck and back. Our shoulders bumped the shelf. Something shifted.

A glass bottle slipped, cracking on the table.

She pulled back in time—I didn’t. Formaldehyde solution soaked my pants through to the skin.

“That can’t be good,” I said.

“I don’t care,” she growled, and pulled me in again.